…The devil sometimes laughs at Nigeria
A few years ago I told a friend, and lawyer Barrister Madaki that Nigeria was (and still is) a wonderful and funny place. I told him anytime God wanted to watch comedy He did tune in on Nigeria 101 on the satellite for the best of laughs…not just serious comedic and clowning laughs but those laughs that are as a result of the fact that you cannot cry. He sees the horrors of Syria, the wars of militias across to Talibans everywhere and groups from India, Libya, Southern America and even a tiny bit of Nigeria but nothing is bitterly tragicomedy like what Nigeria provides.
So from 1999 till date, two ruling parties let me share thoughts with us, there were places, institutions and cities you could count the numbers of cars, like we knew the car owners in University of Jos, or the number of car owners in Ado Ekiti, but boom like the 1972 Udoji salary awards of the Gowon era of too much money and not knowing how to spend and then everyone suddenly could somehow afford a ‘Tokunbo’ car and many cities sprawled with low and high-cost buildings.
We saw the coming of the new age politicians, the wardrobe and furniture allowances crew, we saw the monetization and advent of the hallelujah boys. Today it is the billionaire stealing babies. But let’s all hold our breath for a moment.
Has anyone been jailed for the $356m Failed Railway contract for the rehabilitation of Lot 3 of the Nigerian Railway Corporation’s Eastern line of Calabar to Maiduguri?
How about Halliburton, or the numerous power frauds, my error I mean power projects. How about the various erosion, and road fraud, roads that have been under construction for more than 10 years and yet no end in sight, the Defense budget stealing in the name of fighting insurgents and insurgency. Is it the Manbila project or the Air Nigeria Mungo Park Nigeria Ltd arrangement that surprised real witches that actually fly.
We came up with the EFCC and sister organization the ICPC to possibly compliment the fraud units of the police and others, yet millions and billions of public treasury money continue to be stolen, as our leaders do to us, close your eyes and open sesame it’s gone.
Ten years and counting, the Niger River Bridge is still under construction, alongside various river-dredging frauds. With the exception of the Abuja stadium for the COGA in 2003 and all the housing estate, what big elephant project have we started from beginning to end and which still remains functional. Even the COGA games were riddled with the BMW cars scam and other laughable scandals.
